+Trey Ratcliff is I think my favorite person on Google+. His photographs (or paintings??!!) are amazing! He posted this interesting write up today about non-photographers (me) appreciating his work in simple ways. I thought I'd share the post in appreciation. Thanks Trey!!

Why I love seeing the "Nice shot" and "Wow" comments, and why some other photographers should stop complaining about it...longest post title ever

First, let me be very positive and tell you a few reasons why I like seeing happy comments of affirmation like "Great!", "Love it", "Cool", etc etc. I'll start with the simple reasons and then get into a deeper sense of experiencing the world around us.

So, on a basic level, I simply like seeing people's avatars - their faces. This is important and nice to me. We are humans, and we like to see faces. Incidentally, this is generally why face-avatars are more appealing than cartoons or symbols.

Plus, I know that they took a little extra time in addition to the +1. I think most of my new and upcoming friends here on Google+ are not photographers, so they just have a simple and joyous reaction to it. They give nice feedback in a simple, quick manner.

This all stems from an increasing complaint I see from some other photographers that complain about "inane" comments, wishing "these people" would just +1 and move on. I find this to be a very elitist and condescending attitude. The thing is that photographers have been someone "poisoned" by Flickr. And here is why…

Flickr is great in that it allows photographers to comment on the work of other photographers in a thoughtful, critical manner (sometimes, hehe). So, we get used to a certain level of feedback from other people that have strong opinions on composition, color, light, line, shape, contrast, and these sorts of things. But, for the last five years, I've been sharing a new photo every day on http://www.StuckInCustoms.com and my main target has always been non-photographers. And the simple truth is that they just respond "differently". It's not better or worse… just different. Each of them, no doubt, has a deep level of expertise in various other subjects, and if I were to post something about Austria-Hungary, for example, they would probably respond with a paragraph of helpful datapoints.

So I'm very defensive of all the nice people that take the time to comment, re-share, and become part of the community. If you don't like the way people choose to express themselves in Google+, or generally disagree with the comments, then there is no need to get all upset… just uncircle me and save yourself some frustration.

Now, another way to look at it, if you'd like to alter your perspective, is to consider the expansion of the photography audience. Flickr was also poisonous in that it was just photographers commenting on other photographers in a circle of mutual-mental-masturbation. The bad part is that every photographer comes with their own baggage (I know I do), and they bring that baggage into the comments. So, it's a bit like being an oil painter and only hanging your work in a gallery that other oil painters frequent. You'll have interesting discussions, but you'll also hear a lot of talk of what merchants in Arles are producing the best yellow dye.

With Google+, you find a lot of non-photographers. And this is of course the BEST audience for photographers, because they just simply want to see beautiful things in their life. They can sense beauty, and they don't have to have an art-school degree to like something and sense a deep beauty. And every non-photographer has a wonderfully unique life of experiencing beauty and a very personal history of joy, trauma, and the unique events that make them different. So that means that one photo may really speak to one person… perhaps there is a bit of mystery that their imagination fills in… and it becomes very special to them… and, having different neurons fire, they simply don't know what to say but, "Wow."

When I watch Olympic diving and I see some skinny Scandinavian do four flips and a twist and make ZERO splash, I just stare at the TV and say, "Wow." Or, maybe I see a ballet and the dancer makes a little move that I just can't comprehend. I may turn to a friend and say, "Amazing." There are arts and things well beyond me that I can barely grasp, and words fail.

Anyway, I'll end this little post with a story about the photo below, since we can all probably agree that beauty exists and we all experience it differently. To me, this fisherman and his cormorant bird are beautiful. To the fisherman, maybe the fish he will soon catch is beautiful. To the fish, maybe the Li River is beautiful. All of these truths can be held together in delicate concert, and this is why I love capturing it.﻿

If Google wants to really attract a lot of talented bloggers to G+ and truly incentivize high quality content, then I think they should offer profit sharing if and when they add ads to G+. I'm sure that one day they'll add simple, yet relevant ads on the content you're viewing. Say the post has to do with a trip you took to Hawaii this Christmas, and you'll see discount flights to Hawaii advertising.

For some individuals that attract a lot of traffic (think blogging about various products with a million + followers), wouldn't it be interesting if Google would share up to 50% of the ad revenue with the blogger? Unless you make more than $20 in a year, Google keeps all the ad revenue. But for someone who moves their entire operation over to G+ and creates tons of great content, they would get a decent revenue stream. The best thing for Google+ is for great writers to contribute lots of great content for more readers to use the service. Google doesn't really lose anything if the gain is more than what they give away. My guess is that if the profit sharing is enough, then writers will be dying to move over to G+ to get a piece of the action. I know I would sure consider posting better content and more often if I could get paid to do it.﻿

Did Facebook do that? Also, wouldn't that be likely to result in the exact same type of blogspam and echo chambers that plague the web, Facebook, and twitter? Not saying it's a bad idea, just wondering about unintended consequences and near-term vs long-term value for the service. ﻿

Seems like all my tech-friendly friends have all jumped on board with G+. The first few hours and days saw tons of new additions. But over the past few days, there's been little activity. And besides the big bloggers like +Robert Scoble and +Paul Allen, my stream is really quiet.

And more importantly, the remaining family and friends seem stuck hard and fast to their Faceboook or personal blogs, unwilling to even create an account on G+. It's amazing since most of them already have Gmail accounts and setting up a G+ account would take them a whopping 5 seconds! It might be the summer. It might be that it takes more than a week for most people to get the guts (or desire) to try anything new. At this rate, it might take years for people to be willing to try a new social network.

My initial thoughts after week one and 10 million new G+ers was that Facebook could be a ghost town in another year. But at this rate, FB could incorporate many of the G+ ideas into their own platform. As a software architect myself, I realize changing legacy a product with 750 million unique monthly users is a LOT harder than I'm making it sound. But there are some things they could do around circles and setting up permissions to make the FB experience a lot better. If done before the masses leave, FB could actually turn things back into their favor.

I'm still betting on G+ to be the winner in 5 years. But if FB can start to incorporate some of the great G+ additions, then I just might by some of their stock after all.﻿

Who is joining G+? According to +Paul Allen, we may have hit over 10 million users in a week. Almost all my techie/business savvy friends are on G+ (yes you), but my other friends and family aren't budging. My wife isn't budging from Facebook despite my excitement and only my Dad (out of pity??) has joined from my family. Seems like Google+ might spike with early adopters but could take the rest a while to be converted. Are you seeing anything different?﻿

I switched over to G+ because it was something new and different from Twitter and Facebook. It employs the same aspects of G+ and Facebook, but to me it is better organized and you have better control over the privacy settings. I hated Facebook changing the privacy settings without my permission. I love that you have more control over who sees your information with G+.﻿

Ever sense I read "Outliers," I've changed my sympathies toward taking money from the rich. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE capitalism and believe strongly in having incentives. But does someone really deserve to earn $5 million per year? What did they do that should truly deserve that? When I read about how most people in the richest 0.1% of America work in the financial or government sector, I tend to think something is seriously wrong. I'm not complaining about the doctor or lawyer who struggles through decades of schooling or the businessman who mortgages his house to spawn a new idea. I'm talking about the mortgage speculator who banks a billion dollars at the expense of millions of Americans. Taxing them (or some other form of wealth redistribution) is fine by me. But I doubt this will ever happen when they control the political system. This kind of stuff truly depresses me.

A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules.﻿

Maybe Google should let its cars do all the driving. The blog Jalopnik posted photographs Friday of a Google self-driving Prius -- obvious because of the silver, futuristic gadgetry mounted on its r...

This is a really interesting article about how Google+ can become mainstream. What is promising to me is that I believe all 5 things will be done by Google fairly soon.

So many friends and family have resisted jumping into Google+. I've been really surprised how resistant they've all been. But these strategies really should work for Google. I wish them the best. I just hope that the best product wins here (G+ IMHO).

Personally, I'm not sure if global warming is happening or not. What I do know is that most scientists seem to think it's happening and that at least some of the cause is man made. I tend to agree with a large group of people who have apparently studied an issue and determined that it's true. In other words, on what grounds should I disagree with scientific consensus? I have none. After all it's not too surprising that this many humans can have some sort of impact on our big rock.

So for me, this news from NASA comes as great news. The impact of greenhouse gases isn't trapping near the amount of heat as predicted. I truly hope this article is one of many more to come.﻿

Read 'New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism' on Yahoo! News. NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be releas...